WARDS OF THE STATE Sut,'—In May, 1955, Mr. Raymond Fletcher
was Socialist candidate for High, Wycombe (he was defeated by 7,240 votes). At that time he was described as a lecturer for the National Council of Labour Colleges—a rabid Marxist sect dedicated to preaching the class war. Now this same Mr. Fletcher is good enough to accuse me, in the letter that you printed last week, of feeling hatred and contempt for the handicapped citizens whom I called wards of the State; and to add the taunt that my feel- ings arise from the fact that I was an unsuc- cessful Tory candidate in May, 1955 (I was defeated by 876 votes). Mr. Fletcher's accusa- tions are worth noting only for the light that they throw on the person who makes them.
But let me assure your other readers that I feel neither hatred or contempt for those 4,000,000 fellow citizens who are classified —not by me, but by the authorities whom I cited—as mentally dull. I believe (though presumably Mr. Fletcher does not) that the 4,000,000, like the rest of us, were all created in God's image, with immortal souls.
I refuse to follow Marx and Mr. Fletcher in calling them lumpenproletariat; for that is a piece of abuse on a par with Marx's descrip- tion of Lassalle as 'a Jewish Nigger.'
To point out, as I did, that some citizens are mentally worse off than others is like pointing out that some are materially worse off. Each is a fact of political importance. But I do not despise either 'group. As a Tory, I recognise that it is our national duty to take care of both.
I despise only those politicians who mimic Marx by trafficking in their misfortunes and then jeering at them.—Yours faithfully, London, WC2
CHARLES CURRAN •
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